Dan Le Sac v Scroobius Pip: Plug, Sheffield

It’s not often you hear Miley Cyrus and Sheffield legend Sean Bean referenced in the same show but somehow Dan Le Sac v Scroobius Pip managed to discuss both infamous characters during their set at Plug.

Excusing clichés, a crowd is genuinely taken on a rollercoaster ride at a DLS v SP show, jumping from the last day of a stranger’s life in the haunting yet beautiful ‘Terminal’, to a promise to an ex-lover in an angry yet inspiring ‘You Will See Me’, to a psychiatric ward in ‘Porter’ with old favourites ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ and “Letter from God To Man’ thrown in for good measure, giving the rowdy crowd some food for thought.

Pip took to his dressing up box for ‘Angles’; sporting costumes to tell a tale of a security guard being stabbed by a young man, a spoken word piece brought to life with Dan Le Sac’s beats. But it is not a simple story of “youth attacks authority”, none of the duo’s tracks ever are. Pip writes complex, thought-provoking verse whilst Le Sac provides some incredible backing that gets the crowd bouncing along.

Yet in the brief pauses between a set of songs taken mainly from new album “Repent. Replenish. Repeat” the pair fool about like a pantomime duo, teasing each other or asking the crowd for a tissue- Dan Le Sac was suffering with the sniffles.

Then in an instant the duo are back to being serious musicians: Pip sat brooding in a chair poetry book in hand and Le Sac dropping beats from behind his synths, sometimes creating a jungle sound, other times a hip hop feel.

The show is definitely a step up from the pair’s last show in Sheffield, which was held outside the Students’ Union on an overcast lunchtime, where the raw emotion behind their set felt strange amongst an awkwardly perched crowd and the odd confused professor.

Supporting the duo were Sarah Williams White and Itch, who both joined DLS v SP on stage to provide guest vocals during the main set.

Sarah Williams White starts the evening quietly with a set of chilled keys and beats, touching on deep subject matter similar to that of DLS v SP’s but with a more gentile approach, absorbed in herself and focused intently on crafting her songs throughout her set, rather than larking about with her crowd. She shows off her fun side later in the show, modelling some huge hoop earrings she’d bought that afternoon from one of Sheffield’s markets whilst joing DLS v SP for ‘Cauliflower’.

Itch joined the duo on stage during their set for ‘Stiff Upper Lip’, and joined the crowd on the floor during his own set, who cheered the young rapper on as he performed right next to them. Itch was joined on stage by an adult sized six-month-old musical prodigee, or his band in a terrifying full head baby mask-whichever you prefer. Rapping over reggae, then beats, before dropping some dubstep all within the first song, and then churning out a couple of club anthem sounding tracks, before coming full circle and returning to a more reggae sound it’s almost like Itch hasn’t quite decided what his sound is yet. Some songs seem a bit lost in his set but others are roarers, but he bounced around stage to cheers from the crowd, who enjoyed his mash up of genres.

All in all Sheffield was treated to a fun, emotional night of words, beats and electronic hip hop by Dan Le Sac v Scroobius Pip. Which is lucky, cause if they hadn’t put on an incredible show Pip might not have been forgiven for confessing he didn’t actually hate Cyrus.